CNBC published a story on a 17 year old web site that was nailed in the latest Panda update, Panda 4.0. The story is named Google's secretive updates leave small sites scrambling.
Here is the introductory paragraph:
For 17 years, Linda Stradley has been posting recipes and cooking advice online to legions of followers, drawing enough traffic and Web advertising to support her and her husband, who are both retired. Type "how to cook a prime rib" into Google's search engine, and Stradley's site - whatscookingamerica.net - is among the top results.
I see stories like this every day in the various forums and it is sad. But it reads more sad when you have a professional writer from a major publication publish the story.
There is no doubt the site took an absolutely major hit on Panda 4.0's release. Here is the SearchMetrics chart:
The 72 year old said "I've never seen anything like this and I had no idea it was going to happen." Adding, "I've worked very hard on this and put in lots of hours. It's not just a toy."
"We're always working to improve Google so search results are higher quality and more relevant," Jason Freidenfelds, Google said in an e-mail to CNBC. "We carefully consider and test every update we make, and the goal is always to improve search results for you," he added.
This all brings me back to the Florida update, it really does.
In WebmasterWorld the webmasters and SEOs are talking about the story. The moderator of the forum wrote:
Since the site is so old, she was probably fortunate enough to be adding truly unique content which was well linked to. 17 years later, they're competing with 0000's of similar sites.
I feel bad but the site does need a facelift.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Image credit to Cooking Panda
